


where the bones will show through

by majorrager



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: Age Difference, Ambiguous Relationships, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Pre-Canon, Second POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-29
Updated: 2015-10-29
Packaged: 2018-04-28 14:37:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5094392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/majorrager/pseuds/majorrager
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When you first meet Rachel Amber, she is just barely eighteen but looks older, and when she smiles at you it makes you think of the way the sunset melts into the white glass of the ocean, and you already know that you're in trouble.</p><p>(The undocumented relationship of Frank Bowers and Rachel Amber.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	where the bones will show through

**Author's Note:**

> Like a lot of you, I had a lot of questions left over after _Polarized_ , which broke my heart in a million ways. Expect some Chloe/Max stuff coming up from me soon, but for now, have a tribute to a lesser acknowledged pairing. I'm not gonna lie; this was an attempt at writing something short. You can see how well that worked out for me, lmfao. 
> 
> I've wanted to write a piece on Frank and Rachel for a long time, and after episode 5 I found myself wanting to finish this WIP up. There was something incredibly sweet and tragic about them, a kind of star crossed lovers thing, so here's my interpretation of what they had going on with each other. I picked second POV because it felt most appropriate; I initially began this in third POV, but I feel like this fits Frank more.

When you first meet Rachel Amber, she is just barely eighteen but looks older, and when she smiles at you it makes you think of the way the sunset melts into the white glass of the ocean, and you already know that you're in trouble.  
  
She comes to you because she'd gotten your number from _someone_ , and that's how everyone finds you. There's always a _someone_. You take names, write them down, assign a breed, and then forget them. You don't need to ask to know that she's a Blackwell student, because half the time when she meets up with you she's got a backpack slung over her shoulder, and it's usually on the weekends or in the hours after school lets out for the day. It just lines up.  
  
Rachel is always with a friend of hers. Chloe. And maybe there's nothing remarkable about either one of them — God knows that most of the entitled Blackwell Academy punks need to be taken down a peg — but there's something different about Rachel. Chloe's like most of the burnouts who come to you, always wired and ready to go, constantly primed for a fight, evidently struggling with some unresolved mommy or daddy issues, but not Rachel. Rachel is dreamy and distant and all at once completely there, commanding your attention just by her presence. She's magnetizing, and that freaks you out at first. You don't like that about her. It feels supernatural.  
  
You've known her for all of two weeks before she nicknames you. You've known her for three before Pompidou is throwing himself at her every time she and Chloe drop by. You've known her for four before you start wishing you could paw at her, too.  
  
_Not good,_ you tell yourself. You put her at arm's length. She lets you, for a little while. 

   
  


When Rachel first starts spending time alone with you, it's only because she starts showing up without Chloe. It's because she texts you at nine thirty in the evening on a Sunday night and asks you if you'll meet with her. You settle on a location — the pawn shop out by the pier — and show up early. She turns out to be late. You text her and tell her that you never wait on anyone, but you're still there by the time she shows up. She's grinning at you because she knows that you meant what you wrote, but she knows that she's not just _anyone_.  
  
"What," you growl at her, "is it you want?" You haven't brought your ledger. You still haven't given her an alias in it.  
  
"I was thinking we could go for a walk," she says, her fingers tangled in Pompidou's ears. He's got his head pressed into her tanned thigh, and the flickering neon _OPEN_ sign behind the cracked glass of the pawn shop has granted her a hazy red aura. She's looking right at you, unintimidated. You're not really used to that. You're the kind of person that people cross the street to avoid. That's what has you saying yes. It's against your better judgment, but if you're going to be brutally honest with yourself — and you usually are — your entire life has been one bad judgment call.  
  
So you accept, and Rachel seems happy, if unsurprised, to have her way. She walks you out towards the pier. Pompidou is thrilled by her company, which is almost embarrassing, but you trust his judge of character more than you ever have your own.  
  
You're so used to seeing Rachel as an extension of Chloe, watching her concede to Chloe's brash, loud volatility. You'd never taken her for shy— just quiet, maybe. But neither of those things turn out to be quite true. Rachel isn't reluctant or reticent. She's just steady. She's got a relaxed air about her that would seem pretentious — maybe even fake — on anybody else, but she wears it as naturally as the blue feather she's always got in one ear.  
  
You've sort of forgotten what it's like to have an interaction with someone that doesn't end in cash swapped for drugs. You're not used to this, and you don't know what Rachel expects from you, and she's not letting you in far enough to see.  
  
"It's just you and Pompidou and the RV, right?" she asks you. She's standing on the pier with her hands on her hips, looking out onto the beach, where Pompidou is retrieving the stick she's just thrown for the fifth time. You're sweating in the setting sun, but you're not about to take your leather jacket off in front of her. It's a point of pride.  
  
"I ain't got a seaside villa, if that's what you're asking," you say bluntly. You watch as Pompidou vaults over a log, his legs a blur.  
  
"I'm mad jealous," she says, picking at a frayed spot on her denim shorts. "You could just leave whenever you want."  
  
_It's not that easy to just leave,_ you want to tell her. _You're a kid. You don't get it._ Instead you say, with blunt disinterest, "Blackwell not doing it for you?"  
  
"For now," she amends. "Not forever. As soon as I'm done, I'm out."  
  
Pompidou is making the trip back now, his tongue trailing from his mouth like a pink banner.  
  
"Yeah?" you prompt, trying to sound as vague as possible. You feel unnatural here, a stranger in a strange land, standing with her on the pier. You don't really belong out here with her, and you're not sure why you've come. You don't even know what to do with your arms. Irritated, you fold them across your chest.  
  
"You curious? What's it to you?" she shoots back, laughing, and she sweeps her hair out over her shoulder. You stare at her and set your jaw to stop the heat from reaching your face.  
  
"It's not any damn thing," you say.  
  
She sends an elbow into your side, and that should bother you — it should piss you off — but you're caught up in her smile. "I'm going to California," she says, filling in the answer for you. "I'm going to make it big as a model."  
  
That ought to sound stupid, and in a way, it does, because you've known a dozen girls just like her in your life, all unfocused dreams and vague desires. That's just how it is, growing up in a small town like Arcadia Bay. People either want to get the fuck out as soon as possible, or they're content to spend the rest of their lives stagnating in a place with nothing to offer them. The former often become the latter just because it's so hard to leave. You would know. But Rachel seems more real, somehow. More legitimate. She says that she's going to be leaving like it's a fact. Like she's had a premonition about it.  
  
"Sure," you say, because derisive is one of the only ways you know how to tune your voice, "I bet you are."  
  
She's not offended. Pompidou has made it back, and she kneels to greet him, taking the stick from his mouth in one hand and slinging her other arm around his wide shoulders. She tilts her head against the top of his and smiles up at you and unlocks the latch on your heart just like that.  
  
"We could," she says. "We could bet on it, Frankie."  
  
You look at her, and she looks at you, and then you're shrugging off your jacket, because you're breaking out in a sweat and you're not sure where your pride has gone, except that it has. "Nah," you say finally. "I quit the betting game when I rescued Pompidou."  
  
"Or you just don't want to lose. Pretty smart," she says airily. She tosses the stick off of the pier, where it splashes into the ocean. Pompidou doesn't notice enough to be disappointed; he's distracted by her fingers scratching him behind the ears. Rachel gives him a few more seconds of her attention before standing, and then she's leaning in close.  
  
You back up, hackles raised, like a game dog backed into a corner, but all she's doing is staring at your throat.  
  
"What's that?" she asks.  
  
You've got so many tattoos that you've stopped keeping count of them, but you know what she's staring at. Removing your jacket has exposed it. "A stag," you say finally. You hope she doesn't ask what it means. You don't like talking about yourself.  
  
But before you can say anything else, she's grabbing the collar of your t-shirt, pulling it down to expose your collarbone and examine the stag in full. You consider shoving her off, but you're shell shocked. You just stand there as she looks.  
  
She has no idea what she's doing.  
  
"It suits you," she breathes, then lets you go. She turns and taps her hip to get Pompidou's attention, and then she's heading back down the pier. It's only when she glances back over her shoulder at you expectantly, like she's mildly surprised that you're not just automatically following, that you realize that she knows exactly what she's doing. 

   
  


When she first tries to kiss you, it's everything you've wanted and everything you've dreaded all at once. It doesn't take you by surprise. That's the worst part, probably— that you can see it coming, that you can feel the tension building, but you keep spending time with her anyway. You keep enabling the after school meet ups, the walks, the sandwiches she brings right to your RV from the cafeteria when you're parked out by Blackwell. You keep enabling her, and it makes you the worst kind of scumbag and you _know_ it, worse than your already established role as the creepy drug dealer in the RV, but you think that Rachel would keep chipping away at you regardless of your resistance.  
  
Fall is in its death throes when she tries to kiss you that first time. It's one of those nights when the Oregon cold is stark and grey and desolate and the entire bay is soaked in it, making everyone wonder if it'll ever be warm again. Rachel's running the space heater in the RV while sitting on the floor with you — what little space there is available — and she's helping you measure out and bag up half ounces. You've stopped charging her for weed. Chloe still pays full price, despite Rachel's pouting. Pompidou sleeps curled up in the driver's seat beneath a blanket.  
  
Rachel's phone is plugged into the speakers, and it's playing something quiet and folksy, but otherwise, you've both been sitting in silence. You wonder, not for the first time, why a teenaged girl with so much going for her wants to spend so much time with a nearly homeless drug dealer. You're usually not invested in anything, but you are in the answer to that question, which is why you never ask it.  
  
"What's winter like in California?" you ask her eventually, both to fill the silence and because Rachel's music has never been your style, even though you're always letting her play it anyway.  
  
"California's pretty big, Frankie." Rachel doesn't look up.  
  
"Come on. You know what I mean. LA or wherever the hell all them wannabe cover girls go."  
  
When you say _wannabe cover girl_ , she just smiles. You've never been able to offend her. "It doesn't drop below freezing. It's, like, downright balmy compared to here."  
  
"Sounds nice," you mutter. Rachel talks like Los Angeles is familiar to her, like it's a home she's just waiting to return to, even though you've learned that she moved away from Long Beach when she was so young that she can no longer remember it.  
  
"Maybe you should come see for yourself," she suggests. She's looking up now, smiling in that enigmatic way of hers, and she scoots in close, her hip pressing into yours.  
  
"I'd look like even more of an asshole slumming it in LA," you say, and you're carefully trying to edge away from her. "Yeah. No fuckin' thanks."  
  
"No way. You'd fit right in." Rachel's looking up at you, steady and focused, and she closes the gap again. This time, her shoulder braces against yours.  
  
"Get outta my space," you snap abruptly, because you think you already get what's going to happen and there's no fucking way it can.  
  
"You invited me in," she says, and she reaches up to lock her fingers around your bicep. "I'm already in your space." And then she leans in, very carefully, and her mouth is just an inch away, but she doesn't close the deal. She's waiting.  
  
You look into her face. She thinks she's being clever about this. That's the thing about Rachel. She _is_ smart, a hell of a lot smarter than her years, but you've been around the block a few times, and you'd seen this coming from miles away. Still, you're full of tension when you put your hands on her shoulders and push her, firmly, back.  
  
" _No,_ " you say.  
  
"No?" She's startled, her eyes wide, like she's never heard the word before, like she's not sure if she wants to add it to her vocabulary.  
  
"You heard me." You slide back and stare at the bags in your lap instead of her.  
  
Rachel's tongue pokes into the corner of her mouth. You expect her to look hurt, but she just looks thoughtful. The silence between you both goes on for a painfully long time. "Okay," she says finally. "We'll talk about it later."  
  
"Let's not." You get to your feet. The movement in the RV has Pompidou lifting his head. "I think we're done for the day."

   
  


When Chloe looks at you like she knows something, like she can see into the thing that's festering inside of you, you decide to start cutting all of your conversations short with her.

   
  


When you _do_ kiss Rachel, it's not because you'd planned to. She learns that you're avoiding it, avoiding _her_ , and she adapts. She's a chameleon in that way, endlessly mutable, her colors bursting to match yours and transmuting when you withdraw.  
  
Arcadia Bay is still dripping in holiday lights four days after Christmas. Rachel's been away, texting you about the weeks she's spending in Portland with family. She seems to get that you haven't celebrated a proper Christmas in more than a decade. You don't want her pity, and she doesn't force it on you; she simply wishes you happy holidays and says she hopes you're keeping warm.  
  
She comes to see you on the same day she gets back, and she's got coffee. She rattles the door to the RV and calls for you, and when you hear her voice, you are suddenly explicitly aware of just how long two weeks has felt.  
  
"Merry Christmas, Frankie," is the first thing she says when you open the door, and then she lets herself in, shaking the rain out of her hair. She sets the coffee down by the grit covered sink and greets a delighted Pompidou and you can't stop staring at her. "Did you miss me?" she asks you.  
  
"What?" You've heard her, but whatever the syllables mean doesn't register with you.  
  
"Did you miss me?" she asks again, and she's smiling so bright and so sweet. "Since me and Pompidou are your only friends..."  
  
"Right." It's true. You'd been okay, just you and your dog. It had been a lot easier that way. "I guess I did." It's the most you've ever conceded to her, and you look away when she tries to catch your gaze.  
  
Rachel sets in tidying. She picks clutter off of the floor and stacks dishes in the sink and you allow her to, because she's never condescending about it. She helps herself to your bong when she's done, and you allow that, too. The RV already seems a little brighter and warmer.  
  
"Winter's when I most want to get out of here," Rachel confesses, the bong braced between her thighs. She's in the only comfortable chair you've got; you always sit in the fold out chair when she's visiting. You make a lot of concessions for her.  
  
"I don't blame you." You're made of harder shit than most, but the cold still gets right through the poorly insulated walls.  
  
"Come here." Rachel moves aside on the chair, sliding towards the edge. She pats the freed spot. It's a large armchair, but it's not big enough for two people.  
  
"No thanks." You stay right where you are.  
  
She sets the bong down and turns on your computer. "Don't be like that," she says, laughing. "I just wanna watch a movie. You ever seen _Blade Runner_? Chloe went crazy for it when I showed her."  
  
You've seen it, and you're wary of sitting next to her, but you get up and settle down anyway. You've got one leg right off the side of the chair. It's not comfortable, but you can't bring yourself to get up again. Rachel seems to be pretty happy with that; once you get the movie started, she offers you the mouthpiece, and she's smiling when you let her light up for you.  
  
About halfway into the film, her head tips onto your shoulder. You're not sure if she's asleep or not, and you're too tense to check. You count out her breaths and try to guess that way. You can just barely see the twitching of her eyelashes. It's only when you let your guard down that she suddenly says, very softly, "Hey, Frankie."  
  
You turn your head. Rachel's hand reaches up to cup your cheek, and then she kisses you. It's easy. She doesn't hesitate. Her mouth is warm and dry on yours and it's been longer than you'd like to admit since you kissed a girl, but you reciprocate instinctively. She slides her arms over your shoulders and leans hard into you and, oh, _God_ , you want her so much and you've never had a good handle on your impulses, never.  
  
She tries to slide into your lap, and that's what breaks it. You pull away and grasp at her wrists and unlock her grip on you. All you can think is that you let her kiss you when you told yourself you wouldn't. You're not a good guy. You're not even a decent guy. You're too old for her, too _much_ for her and yet not enough, and you know it.  
  
Rachel's staring at you. "You don't want me?" she asks finally. "Is that it?" She looks like she's completely unused to the concept, and she's not taking it easy.  
  
But that isn't it at all. It's just the opposite. You pull away from her and get up, scratching a hand through your hair, and you can't go on pretending, and you _know_ you can't lie to her, so it all bursts out of you in a snarl. "Jesus fucking— of _course_ I want you, Rachel, what kind of question...?"  
  
She's not afraid of your tone, or the volume. She just looks at you, steady, and while she relents, from that point onward, she redoubles her efforts. She'll try to kiss you nearly every time she sees you, and, most of the time, you let her.  
  
And it's so hard. From that point on, it's so hard to resist her, because your life revolves around her now, around all of these secret meet ups and moments that you both pull off on the sly, beneath Chloe's radar. You get why you have to keep one another like a secret, but it gets harder and harder. Rachel pursues you so directly and so aggressively. It's the feeling of her body pressed into yours, warm even through your leather jacket. It's the weight of her on your lap. It's her throwing herself down onto your bed and saying, _Nothing's going to happen,_ but trying anyway.  
  
She wears down your defenses. You fall in love with her.

   
  


When you first make love to her — you've never really entertained that term before, you usually just think of it as _fucking_ , but that doesn't fit — it's two days after she turns nineteen, and you're both sleepy-high, and she asks you for it, _Please, it's okay, I've never changed my mind_ , and you finally collapse for her.  
  
It's scorching hot, the thick of summer, and she takes all of her clothes off and makes you do it, too, because she wants to feel all of you. Rachel is always saying the things you relegate to the back of your head, the things you tuck up far behind your eyes. She winds herself into you, all tanned, sticky skin and tangled hair, and asks you, _Was I worth the wait?_ and the only thing you can say is _Yeah. God, yeah,_ and you're just nauseous with it, just sick with how much you'd wanted this.  
  
She asks you about yourself afterwards, and she wants to know everything. You tell her about how you'd never really been a part of your own family, how your mother had had you out of wedlock and been shunned by every single one of your relatives. How your father had never featured in your life, and that you'd only ever met him once. How you've got half siblings — three of them — that you know of but have never met. How your mother worked herself until she was too sick to work any more, trying to give you a good life. How she'd died before she could see you fail to graduate from Blackwell Academy. How you'd fallen on hard times, to put it lightly. How you've got nothing but Pompidou now.  
  
Rachel listens, but she doesn't offer commentary, or reassurance, or questions, except for one. She asks you what you were doing at Blackwell. You don't want to talk about it at first, but she coaxes it out of you. She doesn't have to try that hard, and you give her the truth: that you were there on a full ride scholarship, that you were on the science track, a complete genius at math and chemistry. You were a star student before everything went to shit.  
  
"I knew you were a secret genius," she says, smiling.  
  
"Sure," you say, shrugging. "Up until I went off the rails." The only one responsible for the place you're at in life now is you. You've never been one to blame other people for your problems.  
  
"I can help you get back on them," says Rachel softly, and she's got her arms folded around you and her nose in the crook of your neck.  
  
You know that she believes what she's saying, but you already know that she's going to leave you one day, and it already hurts.

   
  


When you ask Rachel if you can take photos of her, she reacts like she's been waiting to hear that question for years. You're an amateur at best, but she makes every shot perfect anyway. You quickly learn that Rachel loves being photographed— that she thrives before the lens, like she most knows who she is when her image is being captured.  
  
You wonder about that for a little while, about the fact that much of her is still a complete enigma to you. There are some things you're sure you'll never truly figure out about Rachel, like the reason she seems so drawn to someone like you. She talks in future tense with you, all _one day_ and _when we_ and _I can't wait_. You're still trying to figure out why.  
  
Rachel doesn't extract any kind of promise from you about the photos— she doesn't try to tell you not to share them, or what to do with them. You think she understands that you just want them to look at. Her image to keep. Nothing more.  
  
She asks for just one thing in exchange. A photo of her with you. You take it, and in the end you make a copy for yourself, too, because this — the picture of her with you — is by far your favorite photo of her. You start carrying it around with you everywhere you go.

   
  


When Chloe drops by one night unexpectedly, Rachel tells you not to say anything about her being in the RV. You're a little confused at first, but then you get it. So Chloe still doesn't know. It's not like you had ever discussed her before with Rachel, but you know that she's close with Chloe. You'd figured that if anyone would learn about you and Rachel, it would be her.  
  
But you start to get why it's better not to let her know the more you see her together with Rachel. Chloe looks at Rachel like she's the sun itself, like she's the one thing Chloe needs to unfurl and thrive. And you see it in Chloe's eyes. You see the exact same thing that's had its teeth in your head and heart since the day you met Rachel.  
  
You know that Chloe loves her like you love her, and you know that Rachel knows it, too. You never talk about it. You don't want to know how Rachel feels in return. If she reciprocates, if she's thought about it. It's not like you and Rachel have ever sat down and discussed anything like exclusivity. If anything, your relationship is the very definition of casual, confined to private moments instead of public commitments.  
  
If Rachel has something with Chloe, you don't want to know about it. But the thought eats at you, and when Rachel one day gives you one of her bracelets to keep, you start checking out Chloe's wrists every time you see her. You know it makes you an asshole to be glad to see them stay unadorned, but you can't help but feel that Chloe is constantly taking Rachel away from you without even trying.  
  
Chloe may not know about the two of you, but she's so possessed by Rachel, you start to resent her. You think that the day Rachel realizes her dream, Chloe's going to be the one there by her side, not you. You can see the two of them running away together. You can't picture yourself the same way. Chloe is Rachel's future. 

   
  


When you have your first real fight with Rachel, it's your fault, but you don't know how to admit that to her. You tell her it's the drugs. She tells you that they're a symptom, not the cause. You don't remember what you'd said to her, only that it had made her eyes go wide and then narrow. You wince, expecting tears. You get frost instead, Rachel pulling herself up with a hard twist in her mouth, snapping Pompidou's leash on and leaving with him. She tells you that she'll come back once you're yourself again.  
  
You're not sure what her idea of _yourself_ ever was. You want to tell her that she doesn't know you, that it was a mistake to try, but you can't pull off lying to her. When she comes back, you tell her that you're going to pull yourself together, and you mean it. You really mean it. You don't want to be who you are any more, whoever that is. She deserves more. Better.  
  
You can still get your shit together. There's a chance. There's always a chance. So you try sobriety, and you consider courses at the community college. Rachel does research at school and tells you that she can probably find a way to dig up your academic record. You can't stop dealing just like that, so you don't. It's too hard to just quit like it's nothing; it's been the only way you've been able to avoid outright homelessness for years. But you pull back. You deal less, and in smaller amounts, and Rachel seems to be happy about that. You think that, maybe, you can become her future.

   
  


When the Prescott kid starts asking for GHB, you don't ask any questions. You need the money, and, besides, Pompidou hates his fucking guts. You just want him quiet and out of your sight as soon as possible.

   
  


When Rachel asks you to take the blood oath with her, you accept without really questioning it. It doesn't occur to you that it might be strange. It doesn't seem that fucked up to you, not when Rachel says, _Hey, let's make a promise_. She's always been into the unusual, the occult— she talks about destiny long into the night, about how being born under a bad sign can influence the entire course your life takes. She tells you that she believes in karma, that she knows that there's a higher power and a greater meaning to everything, that everyone's meant for more. You've let her read your palm so many times that allowing her to draw blood from it doesn't seem like that much more to ask for.  
  
And you want to make that promise with her. You've never been able to deny her anything.  
  
You watch her face as the razor blade bites into the soft part of her palm. She hardly blinks. The blood wells up bright, stinging the air with its scent, and it drips into a pool in her cupped hand. You take the proffered knife and press the tip, firm, into the center of your palm.  
  
Rachel doesn't seem to care about the risk of it. You're not too sure why she trusts you so implicitly, but there's a surge of affection for her as she takes your hand and clasps it hard, smearing red into red. She hooks her fingers into yours and smiles at you— it's so bright and so sweet. You keep holding her hand. She really is the most beautiful girl you've ever seen. You think you'd feel that way even if you weren't in love with her in a way that ruins you more every day.  
  
You look down at your locked hands, at your oath.  
  
"You don't want," you start, regretting it even as you're saying it, feeling like a fucking fool, "something more permanent?"  
  
"What?" Rachel asks you, tipping her head to one side the way she always does when she wants to be cute about something. "Like a tattoo?"  
  
_Like a ring_ , you almost say. Maybe you'd get it engraved. Something to make her smile. _To my lioness,_ or something you'd never dare to say to anyone but her.  
  
But you don't say that. You grab the line she's tossed to you. "Yeah, whatever," you say. "Why not?"  
  
So you take her to Portland that weekend in the RV. It's the first time you've really gone anywhere outside of Arcadia Bay together, and Rachel seems to be deliriously happy about it. She's less into the tattoo shop you take her to than she is into the idea of seeing and being seen with you everywhere. That weekend, safe in anonymity in a big city with Rachel's undivided attention, is one of the best you have in a long fucking time.  
  
Rachel decides to get a star on her wrist. She tells you that it's a reminder to be thankful that she was born under a good one— and a reminder of you, she adds, because you don't have a bracelet to give her. You tell her that you could get her one, but she just puts her bandaged wrist near her mouth and says that she likes the permanent mark better.  
  
But there's always a moment in everyone's life where things are as good as they will ever get. That weekend turns out to be yours.

   
  


When you are left reeling in the wake of Rachel's clear cut _This is over_ , you don't know how to react at first. You're not shocked, because you've been holding the brace position forever. You've been waiting for it. But you'd seen her afraid of you for the first time ever, and it had broken your heart.  
  
You know that you're not who she needs you to be when you're not sober, but everything is easier said than done and you know that you've been holding her back, anyway. You know that, no matter what, she's always going to be looked at sideways when she's with you, someone rough and covered in thorns, the kind of guy people look at and go, _He's had a hard life_ and _Don't get too close._ You can't offer her anything more than anyone else could. You can't offer her more than Chloe can.  
  
It kills you that things end just as quietly as they had begun. There's Rachel standing in your RV, the specter that's been occupying it and your heart for the past year and a half, but she's not here to pose for you or talk to you about her dreams or coaxing you into taking her out for a meal.  
  
"So we're breaking our routine," she says, and it's so plain and so stark. _Our routine_. Can it really be summarized in that way? Had it been that simple all along? Had it meant to her what it had meant to you?  
  
"I guess so," you say, and you might be thorned but you weren't barbed enough to scare her away the way you should have to begin with.  
  
"I guess so," she echoes, and for a moment, you think you see regret on her face. But you know better than that. Rachel doesn't live with regrets.  
  
Letting her go is easy, but you both know you're not doing her any particular favors, because she'd be leaving anyway, whether or not you were still trying to hold on.

   
  


When you first learn that Rachel is missing, it's because you happen to be eating at the Two Whales when the news report comes up. You hear something about an Arcadia Bay girl being missing for the past four days, but you don't lift your head. Missing girls are sad, but they don't intersect with your life. And then you hear, "Rachel Amber was last seen on—" and you move so fast to look up that you send your plate crashing onto the floor.  
  
You try calling her. You leave four voice mails within two hours, and you text her a dozen times. You try her old cell phone number just in case, as well. You consider calling her family, but that's where you hesitate. You call Chloe instead, and you don't know what to make of the conversation that you have with her. Chloe doesn't know the first fucking thing about where Rachel is, and she's all at once morose and furious and sad on the phone, openly expressing all of the things you've trampled deep down into your heart. You want to believe that Rachel has just run away, that she's sworn her best friend to secrecy— but you also think that Rachel would never have left without Chloe. Chloe isn't lying when she says that she doesn't know where Rachel has gone.  
  
Rachel's gone. She's gone, and you don't know why, or where. You wake up every day expecting to hear her knocking on the door, calling for you or Pompidou. You sit on the pier and wait for her to show up to point out the full moon to you. You walk your dog up and down the path by the lighthouse hoping to run into her. You keep calling her every day for two months after she disappears, right until the day an automated voice tells you that her number is out of service entirely.  
  
Chloe wallpapers the town in posters that all scream the word _MISSING_. You carefully remove one from the bathroom wall of the Two Whales and take it to have it photocopied. You start disseminating them whenever and wherever Chloe isn't, a silent partner to her efforts.  
  
She can't be dead. You're sure that she's in California. You think that maybe she just needs time to find herself, that maybe she'd been an enigma to herself, too, and she just needs to untangle that before she comes back for you. You've already forgiven her for not saying goodbye, for not answering her phone, for not leaving any clues. You don't care about any of that. You just want her back.  
  
You start going to church again. You haven't gone since your mother died. It's only the smallest fraction of comfort, but it's the only thing you've got now. The one time you'd met your father, he'd read to you from the Bible, and it feels like coming home. 

   
  


When you die, it's hard and angry and you're burning. It's almost instantaneous. You catch Chloe's bullet in the chest and you crash like thunder.  
  
You'd never expected to die this way. You haven't been the most careful person, or the most righteous. You've filed for moral bankruptcy more than once in your life. But you'd never expected to end your life like this, next to Pompidou's broken body, beneath the awning of your RV with people digging through your pockets.  
  
You die with Rachel's name in your head.

   
  


When Chloe and Max tell you that they're going to find Rachel, you believe them, mostly because you've already exhausted every other option. If they have a new one, then all you can do is wish them luck and pray on it.  
  
You give them your ledger. 

   
  


When you find out what has become of her, it's when you're sitting in the Two Whales Diner with your back to the cabinets and your feet braced against the counter as you rest behind it, nursing a head wound. You'd barely made it there, even though the RV hadn't been parked more than a block away. The storm had tipped it over, and you and Pompidou along with it. For one surreal moment, everything had been suspended in the air, everything you had left to your name floating around you. And then had come the crash, and Pompidou's terrifying squeal, and you don't know exactly what your skull connected with, but it was hard enough that you now have blood all dried down your neck and past the collar of your jacket. You're not sure how long you were out, but by the time you'd come to, Pompidou was licking your face and the RV was shuddering and the storm was screaming outside.  
  
Pompidou had picked his way across the rain slick streets, over the debris and chaos and the bodies — _fuck_ , the _bodies_ — and you know that he might be the only reason that you're not dead yet. He'd led you to the diner, let you put a hand between his shoulders, and found you a way to safety when the concussion would not allow you to think or walk straight. Faithful Pompidou. Loyal Pompidou. You now consider his karmic debt to you paid in full.  
  
Joyce is better to you than you deserve, given all of the trouble you've enabled Chloe to get in and the unpleasant company you've been at the diner. She tends to you like none of that matters, like you'd never been the one providing her daughter drugs, and you hope to fucking God that Chloe is okay so that she can be the one that Joyce kneels next to instead.  
  
Max comes in soaked to the bone and shaking and with pupils shuttered wide and you're so glad to see her that you jolt up a little. You look past her in that rush of relief and expect to see Chloe dragging her feet behind her, but Max is alone. No one follows.  
  
She leans over you and tells you very, very quietly that Rachel Amber is dead, and maybe a part of you had always known it, but you start to choke.  
  
You find yourself begging for it not to be true. All the time you've spent believing in God, in going to church, in trying to maintain your faith— it all seems so inconsequential now. You ask Max if she's sure, and she tells you insane things, horrific things, something about drugs, about a _torture room_ , and she mentions Nathan Prescott and— and you just _know._ Fuck. You _knew_ it, somewhere deep within your chest.  
  
You ask her how it happened, even though you have a feeling. Max tells you, _An overdose._  
  
Of course it was. You don't have to consult your memory or your ledger to know it. You'd never questioned the things Nathan had come seeking, but you should have. You'd sold it to him. You'd sold him the drugs that had killed Rachel.  
  
You killed Rachel.  
  
Faith has always been a broken concept for you, a puzzle that never fit together right, but right now, even though you don't know how any god could allow any of this to happen, there's comfort in believing that it all means something that you just need to work to understand. You think you now know why your mother had always turned to the book when things had seemed to be at their bleakest. You close your eyes and think of salvation and try to find the justice in this, in any of it.  
  
Max looks like she has somewhere to be. You pray that she gets there, and then you pray for Rachel.

   
  


When you find out what has become of her, it's because you catch the photo of Mark Jefferson being led out of Blackwell Academy in handcuffs streaking across the grimy, dim screen of your computer. You wouldn't have given a shit, except then you see Nathan Prescott in the same photo, slightly out of focus, hunched over in a way that makes you think of the long, hard months of rehabilitation when Pompidou had been too afraid to even approach you, even after you'd gotten him out of the ring.  
  
That's the featured story. But it's not the only one. Below it, there's a related article. It says _MISSING GIRL'S BODY FOUND._  
  
A storm begins to brew outside as you read it, and the tears that come are hard and bitter. You think of how you've walked through that fucking junkyard a thousand times since April, picked over the debris and garbage and broken glass, and she'd been there the whole time. Not hiding. Not in California. Right there beneath your feet.  
  
Rachel.  
  
The storm gets stronger as you sit there with Pompidou's heavy head on your lap and his plaintive brown eyes looking up into yours. The windows are rattling before you start to pay attention to the weather outside, and you step outside to stare out into the bay. The sky is nearly black. There's something building in the horizon, and it's got a greenish glow, like an aurora. You get a bad feeling about it, a sick to your stomach feeling, but it's not strong enough to make you close up the RV and start driving.  
  
And maybe it's too late, anyway. By the time the tornado makes landfall, you can't even get the RV going against the wind.  
  
You hold onto Pompidou, and you hold onto Rachel's photo, and you wait to meet your maker.

   
  


When you find out what has become of her, it's because Chloe Price has been murdered, and that event sets off a series of revelations about something so dark and wrong that you absolutely fucking refuse to believe it at first. You don't want to believe that Rachel had gone through something like that. Thinking of how she'd died, bound and afraid, makes you so angry that you think you're willing to endure prison for the rest of your life just to get your hands around Nathan fucking Prescott's throat for just five seconds. Five seconds would be all you'd need. For Mark Jefferson, you think two or three would cut it.  
  
You buy both of the local newspapers that morning and run a fingernail down the obituaries, wanting to see an announcement of a service for Rachel, or a memorial, or _something_. Nothing. You buy them both again the next day and fail to find anything. The third day doesn't yield a result, either— at least not about Rachel. You spot the following: _CHLOE PRICE, 1994-2013._ There's a funeral tomorrow.  
  
On Friday morning, you leash Pompidou and walk him over to the flower shop that's nearest the cemetery, but you stop several paces before you reach the door, and you stand there, feeling like something's stopping you from entering. Someone exits the store and stares at you, but you haven't got it in you to be anything but weary. You linger outside of the shop for nearly an hour. You're running out of time to make it for the funeral, so in the end you have to force yourself to go in. Nobody stares, for once.  
  
You can't afford two bouquets. You're already rubbing every last cent you have together, hoping to spark the fire that lights you up and burns your path out of Arcadia Bay, the fire that had fueled Rachel for so long. But you can at least afford one, and as you peel the paper back and loosen the twine and count out each stem to sort them into perfectly equal piles, you think that Chloe would be okay with sharing.  
  
There's an odd number of them, which leaves one left over. You knot it into Pompidou's collar. He looks fucking ridiculous, but you know it would have made Rachel laugh, so you leave it there.  
  
Rachel's family still lives in the same home. You'd dropped her off there once or twice in the past, before you'd sold your motorcycle, and you still remember where it is. You drop the flowers off on their doorstep and leave again. You don't leave a card. They'll know who they're for. It doesn't matter who they're from.  
  
You watch Chloe's burial from a distance. It's not like you were more than an acquaintance to her; you know you'd be an unwelcome guest. But you feel bound to watch, and you and Pompidou both wait it out through every part of the proceedings. You wait until it's over and everyone disintegrates, like it's too much to bear to linger long after the ceremony. It's only then that you approach to lay the remaining flowers by the headstone.  
  
She's with Rachel now. There's comfort in that. You regret ever resenting Chloe. You hope she's doing right by Rachel, wherever they are.  
  
You're stalking back through the trees when someone gets your attention with a hand against your sleeve.  
  
You turn. It's a girl.  
  
She's so small. You can't really pin an age on her. She's slight and pale in a plain black dress and a gold pendant with the distinct shape of a doe. Her short hair frames a heart shaped face that would be disarming if she weren't giving you the sort of thousand yard stare you've only ever seen in people like you— people who have felt too much too soon and too hard.  
  
"You're Frank Bowers," she says.  
  
You look her over. You try to think of who she might be. She could be one of your Blackwell customers, but you don't think you recognize her. "Who's asking?" you say finally, wary. You just want to go home for the day, curl up with your dog, and sleep. You have a lot of thinking and praying to do.  
  
"My name is Max Caulfield, " she says, her narrow shoulders slumping. "Can we talk?" Her voice is so small, like the rest of her, but it's direct and unfiltered. "About Chloe and Rachel?"  
  
_Chloe and Rachel._ Hearing their names out of someone else's mouth makes it all that more real. You're cautious, but you ease up. You think it over. "You knew them?"  
  
The girl seems to hesitate. You don't think she's being dishonest; she's just picking her words carefully. "Yes," she says finally. "I knew them." She looks you right in the eyes. Hers are lined with reddish purple exhaustion, and you feel sorry for her, but not as sorry as she apparently feels for you.  
  
Max walks with you from the cemetery into one of the surrounding neighborhoods. It's sleepy suburbia out here, and the trees are just beginning to drop their leaves. Max tells you all about Chloe Price. She tells you a dozen things you'd never known about her, all the things that had made Chloe who and what she was, the charming quirks and the good heart that you'd failed or refused to ever notice in your jealousy. She tells you things you hadn't known about Rachel. Letters she'd written, things she'd left behind. She tells you that she's sure that Rachel had loved you, and that Chloe had accepted that, too. She tells you that Rachel had made mistakes, but that she'd never have wanted to hurt you, or to get herself hurt.  
  
You talk for hours about Chloe and about Rachel and about the stars and fate and destiny that she'd loved and believed in so much. Max tells you that she believes in those things, too. When the sun sets and she says that she has to get back to school, she leaves you with a parting gift: a bracelet. It's got an R on it. She's clutching another in her hand; the charm is a C. You think you get the picture. You take the one she offers, and you thank her, and you ask Max if she'll help you put it on.  
  
"This one was Rachel's too, right?" she asks you as she helps fasten the frayed ends. She's looking at the bracelet that you're already wearing. You look at it too and smile.  
  
"Yeah," you say. "How'd you know?"  
  
"Rachel," Max says vaguely, but that's all you really need. She finishes tying and steps back.  
  
And that's it. She's already refused a ride back to campus. You stand there staring at one another, two strangers bound by two lost girls.  
  
"Hey," you say finally, suddenly. "Thanks."  
  
Max's mouth quivers, but then she smiles, and she reaches up and rubs the backs of her hands into her eyes. "Take care, Frank," she says.  
  
"You too, kid." You wait until her friend in the beat up blue car pulls up to pick her up, and then you wait and watch as it drives off with her into the distance. You call Pompidou to his feet and head back for the RV.  
  
You think you know what to do.

   
  


When you had met your father for the first and only time, he'd told you that he wanted to enter His house justified. At the time, it had seemed like hypocrisy, like a bunch of stupid fucking bullshit he'd adopted to reassure himself that it was fine to abandon you as a kid, but now you think you get it. You might resent your father for the rest of your life, but maybe you can do that much. You will enter His house justified.  
  
You think you'll go to California. You know that Rachel would like that. You can hear her now.  
  
_Do it, Frankie. You've got nothing left to lose._  
  
Maybe, for the first time in your entire life, that's not a bad thing.  
  
She's right.  
  
You drive.

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me on Tumblr [here](http://mjrrgr.tumblr.com), if you'd like. 
> 
> Comments, critique, questions— all are encouraged and appreciated.


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